


and it feels right this time

by ohyondermemphis



Series: A 90s Mixtape [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A 90s Mixtape, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Growing Up Together @ Wools, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The One Good Person In Their Lives, Tom Riddle Born In Harry’s Timeline, Your Standard Evil Adult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyondermemphis/pseuds/ohyondermemphis
Summary: It hits soundlessly, and the blood spreads itself into a multi branched tree, curling script in bright red beneath the leaves. The roots do the same thing, and Harry leans over despite herself, eagerly reading his history.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: A 90s Mixtape [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921390
Comments: 16
Kudos: 99





	and it feels right this time

**Author's Note:**

> Because. A rambling range of stories, this being the third.
> 
> _Pay no mind to the distant thunder,_  
>  _new day fills his head with thunder._
> 
> _No Leaf Clover / Metallica_

In the end, it didn’t matter that Tom had wound a terror tight threat around Dennis Bishop for their cover story.

Cole waited until Mary Margaret and the day marms had already left to round her suspects up. It’s late enough that the younger years are already in bed. The upper years mostly gone, either in town or at work.

It’s just Cole standing before them, the night crew she controls like a clenched fist banished elsewhere.

Five of them stand together, Tom and Harry in the middle.

“I’ve already looked at the cameras.” Tom had bribed Penny with a weeks worth of cigarette picking up money to have a look at the cameras last week, they needed to know what they were up against. Grainy and distorted, Tom had laughed out loud when the VHS played back their trial run. They had moved the camera two days before they slipped into Cole’s office nonetheless.

Harry’s face is stoic, but she can catch the edge of Tom’s smirk in her peripheral.

Cole peers down at them, paddle slapping the hard skin of her palm. For all that he’s a spineless simp, Dennis does his part, stuttering out their alibI.

Harry and Tom stand straight and tall, a mirrored hardness in their eyes as they look up at Cole.

She smiles, a cold, hateful thing, like she’s finally able to pluck out two thorns in both her sides. She puts the paddle under her arm just before she snatches them up, necks held tight in a bruising grip, lips locked together even tighter, each other’s anger scratching under skin.

In her office, they share a hundred licks between them. Counted aloud so that they could bear witness to each other’s humiliation.

Cole’s sweaty and exhausted afterwards, and she stretches out her arm, eying the two of them, feeling very well put together in her position of power.

Tom’s face is angry red flushed but he doesn’t cry. Harry can’t stop herself. And she hates herself for it, for showing weakness to this weak woman.

Tom looks at Cole like he could kill her in cold blood and suddenly, the paddle explodes violently in her hand, wood blowing up to hit her in the face.

She leans away from them, frightened rabbit eyes like Billy whenever he managed to push them over the edge. A small scrape of blood emerges from where the broken bits scratch her cheek. She puts her hand over it immediately.

“Get out, the both of you. Straight to bed.” She backs up as they walk past her, like she’d catch whatever they have.

Tom takes Harry by the elbow, more gentle than he’s ever been and leads her down the stairs to the bathroom where they’d seen their marks for the first time. She leans over the sink, sucking down her hate and his, letting the running water splash her face. She can only calm herself down in increments.

Tom paces behind her. It feels like a fever, like his rage was hers and for a moment she loses herself in the maelstrom of his emotions, tangled up together, black as night.

“I’ll kill her.” He speaks calmly, like it was an afterthought but she feels his resolve, his blind single mindedness. She straightens up, wipes her wet face with her hands and stares at him blankly.

“Don’t be dumb, Tom. She’s miserable, letting her live would be worse.” She shakes her hands out of the fists they’re clenched into as his rage swells inside them both.

“She’s vile, insignificant. How dare she? She _hurt_ us just because she could.” She leans back against the sink, arms crossed and backside burning just as strong as his name under her ribs.

“That’s what she’s always done. We leave in less than two weeks, she stays here with all the other insignificant people. She’ll always be here, and we’ll be gone. And you going to prison for murder puts a kink in those plans, so cool it.” She wipes her face again, surrendering to the idea that she’d have to, at some point in the near future, sit down with all the others, with their smirks and their pity, hurting worse than she did already.

“It’s not enough, that’s not enough for me.” He stares at her, anger and pain flushing his cheeks, fire and brimstone lighting up his dark eyes. She feels the tightness of fury trying to whip at her, like the paddle in Cole’s hands, like it wants to hurt her for stopping him. She keeps her spine straight, quiet and eyeing him until he relaxes his jaw.

“It is for me. Now shake it off and let's go to bed, I’m tired.” She reaches for his hand and surprisingly he lets her. She leads him upstairs, his hate still thrumming.

A week comes and goes, Hogwarts waiting for them in seven days. Tom’s quiet, more so than usual, and even Mary Margaret can’t get the usual sarcastic comment from him, the eye roll, not even a snide remark.

They stay together during the day, summer is always the worst at the orphanage, when they all are crammed together and Harry thinks, between Tom’s disquiet and their alienation from the others, that even school would be a welcome reprieve.

“Why are you being like this?” At the end of her rope, she hisses it to him, alone for now at the back of the orphanage. They sit on milk crates, the building beside the orphanage just a bare leg stretch away. Tom slowly looks at her, before he rolls his eyes away, crossing his legs at the ankle and looking at his nails.

“I’m not being any way, Harry.” She scoffs at his response, his accent giving him away completely. He only clips his enunciation like that when he’s trying to be elite, when he wants to be a dick.

“Right. Quit acting like an ass. We’ve only got a week.” She sits on her hands, her rear still bruised, she hates this hesitancy, but the words are pulled out of her. “Are you still upset about Cole?” Dumbledore had talked to them about accidental magic, they’d both experienced it when they were younger, when they didn’t know they were different but felt like the word freak fit them anyway. Nothing like that has happened in a long time.

“She’ll get what’s coming to her.” He scares her in that moment, and it is the first time she’s felt that way about him. His eyes go cold, frigid like when the heat didn’t work that winter and she thought they were going to freeze to death.

She lets that be the end of the conversation.

She goes to sleep truly thinking about Tom, not for the first time, they’ve known each other too long, but this time feels different. She lays in her bed, blocking out the other girls, the noise that always persists in this place.

She lays still and drifts down into herself, and there, in the darkness of her own being she feels him. The anger that sits under his skin, humming away like a live wire all day, the casual hatred he feels for everyone that surrounds him, even her some times, the ache of his loneliness, the confusion of their bond, the cold contempt of being tied to her. He thinks of her and she swirls around, twisted up in things she can’t even begin to understand.

She jerks herself up, and away from him. His emotions are a bruise on her skin, lingering. She lays back down, unsettled.

-

The sun is out on the last Sunday before they leave and they take advantage of the nice weather by sitting in the front garden, several groups had been taken to the park but since they’d been busted by Cole they’ve been confined to Wool’s. Tom wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway.

Harry flicks a ripped up weed at Tom, on his back with sunglasses on. She’s beyond bored but she shakes his leg when she sees Mary Margaret walking up through the gate.

She’d had weekends off since they were six, telling them rather truthfully that she’d rather be walking through Heathrow naked then being at Wool’s on the weekend. They could commiserate.

She walks right by them, in shorts and a sweatshirt, dirt on her trainers from where she’d been planting in her garden. They catch each other’s eyes and quick as lightning jerk up to follow her.

They keep their distance, hiding in the sweet spots they know so well. They’re bold enough to linger in the hallway around Cole’s office, peeking around the corner as the two women stand off at the door.

They can’t hear much of the quiet, forceful conversation but Harry keeps her eyes on them, watches the rigid lines that each woman angled towards the other, scurrying back just around the time Cole slams her office door in Mary Margaret’s face.

Mary Margeret walks around the corner, where they wait. “Come on, kiddos, one whole day with me before you go. Got a day pass today from the Warden herself.” She grins down at them, Harry feels her whole face light up and even Tom looks as excited as he ever does. She takes each of their hands so that she’s in the middle.

Mary Margaret takes them straight to her home, and even Tom begins to thaw at the opportunity to taste true freedom for the first time.

Harry’s held Mary Margaret’s hand a hundred thousand times, but as they walk along the sidewalk, she feels for the first time like she’s just like any other girl, with her mum, her idiot brother. They’ve gone round the shop for milk, and Tom pouted his way into a Cadbury and she got to get an ice lolly for having such a cad for a brother.

She feels like she’s floating along the cracks in the sidewalk, and Tom pauses as he questions Mary Margeret about this turn of events to peer at her on the other side, his brow bent in confusion.

And even in the warm grip of a woman who loved a pair of outcasts like her and Tom, she felt a little more lonelier than she did before. She shakes it off, like an afterthought. She can have her own thoughts, her own wants, her own ache. She didn’t have to always live in his shadow. She smiles at him and he startles, she’s usually mean as a snake sometimes. But not today.

Mary Margaret finally leads them to a neat row of houses, plain but well kept, with a creaky fence that she opens for them. A woman immediately is at the door, a hand on her hip and a wry grin on her face.

“So these are the infamous twins, huh?” Mary Margaret looks bashful for a second but confirms it all the same. And with that, they are introduced to Abena.

They’re eleven, but they aren’t stupid. Mary Margaret kisses Abena, just after they are escorted through the cheerful yellow door.

“Maggie talks about you two all the time.” Harry instantly falls in love, just the tiniest bit with Abena. She likes her big hair, and her warm brown eyes, she likes the handprint of flour on her thigh, and the way she looks like she gives the best hugs.

Tom, of course, is more reserved. Mary Margaret’s glances at the two of them, a strange look on her face that’s wiped off almost instantly. “Harry, can you help me out in the garden for a bit?” It’s just because she knows this boy inside and out that she sees a moment of pure panic, but it’s buried just as quickly. She squeezes his wrist and his eyes connect with her, he’s never looked so scared.

Another squeeze and she follows Mary Margaret outside.

The weather cools off just the littlest bit as they pull weed after weed out of the garden. They prattle away at each other, comfortable and familiar. Mary Margaret asks her how excited she is for school, how she hopes they’ll learn loads, how cold the winters are, did she have enough underwear, enough of everything. Harry laughs, mutters something about scholarships and hopes that’s the end of it.

She takes a break for a moment, and stretches out her legs, rubs the dirt off her knees. The back doors been left open and Harry can see Tom in the kitchen, kneading bread at the counter while Abena watches him. She pushes the obstinate curl of his back from his forehead and he looks up, mouth hanging open just the tiniest bit. A smile then back to work.

Harry leans back on her elbows, eyes closed and face in the sun, and maybe, maybe he wasn’t _exactly_ like she thought he was.

-

Cole wakes them up early Friday. Tells them in as little words as possible to be finished packing and outside her door in ten minutes.

They’re just sliding into the hall when Cole’s door opens and Dumbledore steps out, Cole hovering behind him.

“I think the Northern air will agree with them.” He looks at the pair over the rims of his half moon glasses, smiling indulgently at Cole while she blushes back at him.

They both shudder at the sight. Tom openly rolls his eyes away and Harry watches as Cole grows mean again, her anger hair triggered to Tom Riddle.

“Good luck then, professor.” She steps back and slams the door leaving Dumbledore and Harry and Tom quiet in the hallway.

Dumbledore slaps his hands together, eyeing the two of them. Harry worries for half a second that he’ll call the whole thing off before he smiles down at the two of them.

“Ready to go then?” They both grip tight the battered straps of their backpacks. Tom’s mercurial mood switches off and he looks at her, real and excited and she feels the same.

“Yes, sir.” They say together.

Good riddance, Harry thinks as they walk out of the gate.

He leads them to an alley about four blocks away from Wool’s and much as she hates the comfort she finds in it, she blindly reaches for Tom, his hand finding hers easily. He holds tight, a new kind of excitement inside him when he follows Dumbledore in the zig zagging maze he marches them in.

“I’m sure you two know all these little paths, but I’m quite excited to take them. I haven’t been in London in ages.” They haven’t, not really, as they walk quickly behind the long legged man. Cole keeps a tight leash on them and even though Mary Margaret pets them she knows better than to let them have free reign. Give them an inch and all that rot. She’d let them run to the market, giving them a pound a piece for candies sometimes, they were too young to wander off on their own but they managed to become knowledgeable explorers of their own neighborhood.

London was still a beast they hadn’t managed to tame quite yet.

Dumbledore’s excitement continues on as he looks at the blue, black and green of the recycling bins they stride by. An ugly bruise is what Harry thinks, a stink she hopes won’t seep into her clothes. That’s just what she needs. Tom looks equally disgusted. But he looked like that half the time anyway and Harry lets out a small huff of laughter at his upturned nose.

They walk for fifteen more minutes, listening quietly to Dumbledore’s exclamations of how beautiful the graffiti is, smirking when he covered their eyes as they pass some of the more colorful ones, Harry had said worse to Tom on some of her good days, same as him. The words were commonplace in the upper rooms, trickling down like polos and trainers.

“Well, better not tell Headmaster Dippet about that one.” He mutters as he drags them behind another row of houses until finally they stop at what looks like a dark and dingy pub.

The sign for The Leaky Cauldron hangs halfway off its post and Tom and Harry share a raised brow between them. He leads them around the building to a rear garden, straight to the brick wall that closes it in.

They watch him very carefully as he pulls out a wand, the second time they’ve seen the magic stick, long and white and bulbous. They can’t take their eyes off it as Dumbledore twists it in his hand, like an extension of himself, and taps a pattern in the bricks.

“Start here.” He signals to a completely innocuous brick at the bottom. “Three up, two across. Three times” He shows them slowly, counting aloud and tapping his slick stick across each brick until he steps back.

The wall trembles, seemingly sucking into itself where the last brick was tapped and Harry almost takes a half a step back, but Tom keeps a firm grip on her hand (she hasn’t even realized that he’d manage to hold onto her the whole time) and keeps her in line with him.

Magic, real and warm sizzles in the air. And Dumbledore steps behind them, and they are wide eyed and wonderful when their world finally comes into view.

Harry takes a step forward and Tom matches her, letting her pull him through the crowd, Dumbledore hot on their heels. They both grew an inch last year and she uses the advantage of her long legs to put speed in her walk, wanting to see everything.

Dumbledore chuckles lightly behind them and it’s like he’s following a leash, trying to keep up with them. His bright aqua suit stands out in the jumble of muted colors they weave in and out of.

Harry is amazed at this blatant, lazy display of magic, the mundaneness to the creatures and inhabitants of this crooked little ally. She feels the same thrum of excitement in Tom, like a sweetness they’ve never tasted sits right at the tip of their tongue.

“Woah-ho-ho. First.” He stops them with a strong clap on their shoulders, immediately stopping their forward projection. “We must go to Gringotts. I believe you’ll both find something waiting for you there.” He turns them around, keeping them close in the bustling mix of back to school shopping.

On the short walk he explains that the only banking done in the magical world is done at Gringotts, and Harry excited but skeptical waits to see her very first goblin.

They aren’t very nice. Not that Harry expects much else. They’d done a screening of The Labyrinth at Wool’s last summer, (screening being the operative word when they all trudged into the cafeteria and had to watch the small TV over heads and hands) and while she’d be practically puddle like to meet a Goblin King like David Bowie, she’s learning awfully quick that isn’t going to be the case.

A goblin leads them to a small room, one table, four chairs, dark walls and sconces. She’s scared for half a second until Dumbledore gently takes her by the elbow, sitting her next to an already seated, nonplussed Tom.

“A drop of blood, my dears. To determine magical family lines and alleviate any concerns about claiming a heritage.” He smiles kindly at them but the goblin is already reaching for Tom’s hand, a golden needle poised to puncture one stiff finger. He snaps his fingers on his other hand, and a blank piece of old looking paper appears below Tom’s outstretched hand, ready to catch the lone drop of blood.

It hits soundlessly, and the blood spreads itself into a multi branched tree, curling script in bright red beneath the leaves. The roots do the same thing, and Harry leans over despite herself, eagerly reading his history.

Gaunt, Slytherin, Peverell.

“That’s a founder!” He points to the curl of the S, as excited as she’s ever seen him. She smiles, blinding bright, as his eyes light up to look at Dumbledore’s. Dumbledore seems to shake himself for a moment, his eyes finally leaving Tom’s family tree, the bright smile they associated him with covering his face once more.

“Right you are, Tom.” They’d covered all that weeks ago and whenever Harry and Tom would have the smallest bit of privacy they’d rehash what he had said, imaginations running rampant about this new world they’d soon be in.

The goblin seems unperturbed by the events unfolding before him. He just holds his hand out, rather impatiently, for Harry’s this time. Another snap, another poke and her own tree forms.

Potter, Black, Peverell.

They both tense but Dumbledore chuckles fill the small room. “It’s alright, it’s not unheard of for lines to stem. The magical world is not as big as the Muggle by any means.” Her shoulders uncurl just the smallest bit but before they can speak any further, the goblin is already heading out the door. Dumbledore pulling them away, taking the pieces of paper with him as they follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from No Leaf Clover / Metallica. 
> 
> Thoughts? I ... did not like this but I also needed it? Okay - so I guess this here’s where a plot starts forming? Maybe. Yes. Definitely.


End file.
